Requiescat
by oneiromancer242
Summary: AU one-shot. A family gathers to bid a final goodbye to their baby boy. Angst and gloom and darkness abounds.


**A/N : Well, you can blame/thank Ms Magneto for saying "Just imagine the family if they lost Peter" - so I did. And now I need all the hugs. This is a completed one-shot, someone PLEASE give me a cute and fluffy prompt!**

It had taken weeks to track the compound down, days to plan the attack, mere minutes for Erik and Hank to overpower the very few troops that had been left to guard it. Obscured from Charles' view by the exterior being clad in the same telepathy-blocking metal that Erik's helmet was formed from, they had relied on skill and tenacity to find it.

Jubilee had been almost hysterical, when they had found her, locked into a little room with vibranium shells fastened around her hands, so that trying to use her powers to get free would have left her without fingers if she'd tried, but mostly physically fine. A little banged up, but otherwise alright. Kurt much the same, fastened into a tiny Faraday cage that blocked his ability to teleport out, miserable and scared, but mostly unharmed by the imprisonment. They had freed their comrades swiftly, taken them to find the final missing Mutant, hoping that he too might be a little bruised and shaken but alive and at least partly well. Their hopes had not been fulfilled.

He was still tied up, their captors had not even bothered to remove his body from the elasticated cords that bound him hand and foot. Dried-up lacerations on his wrists and ankles from struggling to break free, dents in the metal door where he must had repeatedly run at it, trying to batter it down. Slumped in the cords like a grisly marionette, unwounded aside from those marks he had made by himself. Hank had tried to keep Erik out of the room without success, all the fur down his back standing on end as Erik had yanked the metal loops that held the cords out of the walls and sat for a long while rocking his son's body in his arms, pushing the hair back from his white, lifeless face and whispering softly to him, as if he could will him back to life. Then he had stood, tenderly handed Peter over to Hank, strode out of the room to where they had imprisoned the troops for safekeeping, and brutally slashed every one of them to pieces.

Hank did not stop him.

Jubilee had told him, on the silent journey home, about the rations they had been given – sufficient enough for herself and Kurt, but nowhere near enough for Peter. Hank tried not to contemplate how long he would have taken to die, hoped that he had expended so much energy trying to pull himself free that it wouldn't have taken long before he exhausted himself, but knew in his heart that Peter was far too sensible for that. Despite panic he would have tried to be still as much as possible as soon as he knew that struggling would make things worse. He might have lasted a couple of weeks, perhaps a month, before it had finally been too much for him. Hank hoped he had slipped into a coma first, rather than been conscious to the full agony of death by starvation and dehydration. Erik had taken the body on his lap, was rocking it gently, until he had finally spoken in a weak, wavering voice

"Give me that blanket, Hank" he said, "Peter's cold"

"Erik…"

"Give it to me. Now"

He had tucked his son up in the blanket, pulled it around his body and softly cradled his head against his chest. With the air in the room so dry and cool, there had been almost no decay, but nobody could have thought he was merely sleeping, paper-dry skin sagging against the bones of his face, eyes sunken in, limp and still in his father's arms. Erik rocked him, humming some melody, did not take his eyes from his son's face. Hank thought of that day they had travelled back from the battle with Apocalypse, when Erik had similarly cradled his son all the way home, unconscious from the pain of his broken leg and arm. Wished that like that time, Peter would wake eventually.

Erik had gone to tell Magda himself. Would not allow anybody to break the news over the telephone. As soon as she had opened the door and seen him there alone, she had known. He wouldn't have been there otherwise. They would have called her from the Academy, told her she could come and spend time with her only son whilst he recovered. Had sat with Erik on the sofa and stared into a glass of vodka for a long while before she asked

"Did he suffer?"

Erik had put his arm around her then. She allowed it, even took his hand where it rested against her shoulder, held it tightly. Looked at those flinty eyes that were now so dull and glazed with pain

"Yes," he told her, "Terribly"

"You could have lied" she said, "You could have told me it was quick"

"Would that have made it better, Magda?" he asked, "If lying would help, I would do it gladly. But it won't change anything"

He had stayed with her that night. Helped her finish the bottle, Neither had anything to say. Eventually he had taken her to bed, kissed the tears from her face. They had made love, because it seemed there was no other way to feel anything but numb, and after she had laid sobbing all over again in his arms until she finally slept. Came back to the Academy with him in the morning. Kept a tight hold of his hand whilst she walked through the corridors of students who seemed to have no will to speak to one another, as if the heart had been ripped out of the school.

In a way it had. Though not all of them would have considered him a close friend, every student in the school had known Peter. The tiny ones, who knew they could be sure of comfort if they missed their families if they sought him out. The young ones, who had respected his master pranking skills and known they could be guaranteed good advice and sympathy when they struggled with their gifts. The older kids who had trained with him, shared classes with him, known how kind and giving and sweet he was. How he had a way of making people laugh and feel better, and would do so by instinct when anybody was upset.

Angela had refused to emerge from her room. Bolted the door and spoken only to confirm that she was still alive in there when anyone had demanded she let them in. Finally dragged Leon from his room the following night, pulled him blinking and confused down to the cold-room where they were keeping the body until they had made the necessary arrangements. Turned to him with burning, tear-filled eyes and told him

"Put him back"

"What –"

"You, Ghost Boy. Go grab him, and put him back. I want my Puppydog back. Now"

She'd gone over to the metal table, put her hand over his where they rested crossed on his chest. Leon could see her shoulders shaking with silent sobs, wished he could do something.

"I can't," he told her. Tears running down his own face now, "He's not here, Spark. Even if he was, that body's done for. He's been embalmed now, I couldn't-"

"Bring. Him. Back" she told him, turning without warning and flying at him to strike him hard around the head and shoulders, not looking or caring where her fists fell, splitting his lip and only stopping when he had pushed her hard against the wall. She hit her head, slid down the wall into a crumpled heap. Buried her face in her knees and sat there shuddering with sobs.

"Please," she begged, "You've got to"

Leon sat beside her, close against her. Finally pulled her to her feet and pulled her out of the cold-room, locked it behind them.

"I wish I could, Sparky" he told her. Choked and thick around the lump of pain in his throat, "I would if I could. But I can't. I can't give him back to you. I loved him too, sweetie, but we've both got to find a way to let him go"

"I can't" she told him simply.

Wanda and Lorna had arrived the following morning. Sat with their mother and Erik in the Professor's study. Lorna smoked continually, though she'd given up seven years ago. Wanda had simply stared and nodded and agreed with everything anybody said. At last looked up at Xavier and said

"When am I going to wake up?"

Her voice was disconnected, fixed stare like that of a sleepwalker, bedraggled and dishevelled from driving through the night to pick up her sister and get here.

"Wanda, honey…" her mother tried. Reached and grasped her cold hand in hers, but couldn't finish the sentence.

"I can't be burying my brother" she said, "We're thirty. Who dies at thirty? It isn't real. It can't be. We're… he's… "

She stopped, knew that it was real. Knew by the way that she felt numb and dead and half-gone herself that she had lost him forever. Hadn't cried yet until that point, but now dug her hands through her hair, making a high, soft noise as she bent forward over her knees, began to rock like a child. Didn't resist as her mother had pulled her over to wrap her arms around her and shush her.

Lorna could not believe how different her family was. They seemed like strangers to one another, bound by blood but somehow so far apart now. She herself was too nervous and shy to be the strength they needed. Wanda was too serious, Erik too cold. Even their mother, who was warm and sweet, was not the forceful heart they needed to pull them together. Though she had known that Peter was the real force behind them all, kept them going and had enough love and kindness to make up for any of their shortcomings, she had never realised before how much without him, they were all just lonely people who happened to share a name. She wondered if without that kind soul to draw them together, they would even really be a family anymore. Thought of the endless parade of Thanksgivings and Hannukahs and birthdays and Purims that would come and go without her travelling home to the cosy little world that he kept warm for them all. Lit another cigarette and didn't listen to the funeral arrangements, as if that would make it go away.

They had buried him the following morning, just after dawn. At Magda's request, there had been only family and the Professor by the graveside, not wishing to share her grief with anybody else. Looked pale and shell-shocked and destroyed as she had watched them lower her son's casket down. Reached for her daughters' hands for support but still sat down in the grass and had begun digging her fingers into the dirt, unable to stop herself from letting her sobs rise to a screaming wail. Wished that Erik had not killed the men who had done this, so that she could have killed them herself. Could not be dragged from the little plot when it was over, but sat with Wanda by her side watching them fill in the grave. Stayed although it had begun to rain and they had both soon been soaked.

Wanda left that night, having spoken to nobody. Lorna the next day, boarding a plane back to Washington to bury herself in her work again. Angela dropped out of the Academy. Went home to her father's house and back to her old bedroom and no longer cared about any plans she may have had. Magda allowed Erik to drive her home, then shut herself up in her house and drank. Erik himself had not returned to the Academy, but disappeared. None of them had contacted the others for weeks, seeming to have nothing to say when at last they did. Left each alone in their grief as Peter never would have done, and without him to comfort them could not find their way out of that darkness. It would be years before there was any laughter in the Maximoff household again, even that cut short by the memory of the boy who had brought all the light they had ever had into it.

 **A/N : Tissues? Ice-cream? Anything?!**


End file.
